1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to dual operating system architectures, and in particular, relates to techniques for sharing peripheral devices in dual operating systems.
2. Description of the Related Art
Portable electronic devices, such as notebook computers and smartphones, have become indispensable for modern day humans.
Conventionally, the operating system of the electronic devices which is mostly used is the Microsoft Windows operating system (OS). Nowadays, however, the Android OS, which is based on a Linux operating system, is also popularly used. The two operating systems perform differently with different operations. In order to take advantage of both of the operating systems, some designs integrate the two operating systems into a single one electronic device. In some designs, the electronic device has only one CPU that processes instructions for dual operating systems, while in some other designs, separate CPUs are respectively in charge of one of the operating systems Generally, in a dual operating system architecture, only one of the operating systems will be in operation while the other will stay in a sleep state at the same time. In the manner, the dual operating systems can share resources with each other and unnecessary conflicts may be prevented.
However, when switching between the operating systems, the peripheral devices are unable to maintain a consistent setting since one operating system does not know the system settings of the other operating system. For example, the display brightness and the speaker volume may suddenly change when switching between the operating systems. Thus, users must frequently adjust system settings, which is inconvenient for users.